Free Ray Bourque!
Fleet Center
Boston, Massachusetts
9 June 2001
Disc 1:
1. Trippy Elevation Intro/Elevation
2. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
3. Until The End Of The World
4. The Fly
5. Even Better Than The Real Thing
6. Mysterious Ways
7. In My Life
8. Stuck In A Moment
9. Kite
10. Gone
11. New York
12. Out Of Control
13. Sunday Bloody Sunday
Disc 2:
1. Desire
2. Party Girl
3. Stay (Faraway, So Close)
4. Bad
5. Where The Streets Have No Name
6. Beautiful Day
7. Bullet The Blue Sky
8. With Or Without You
9. One
10. She's A Mystery To Me
11. Walk On
Taper: daveydave
Location: General Admission (20 feet from the tip of the heart, slightly to the
left on The Edge's side)
Source: Sony MZ-R70 with Core Sound Stealth Cardioids with Low Sensitivity
option
Mastered to SHN by the following method: Minidisc masters > Sony MDS - JE510 >
Toslink Digital Optical Cable > Pioneer PDR-609RW > CD-R > EAC (Secure and
tested) > WAV > Soundforge 5.0 > mkw 0.96f > SHN
Note: Band Introductions were not recorded due to changing of the minidiscs.
This is a very nice recording of one of the best concerts on the first leg of
the tour. The last of four concerts in U2's home away from home, the band pull
out all the stops. There is a lot of energy in the building, as is always the
case at a U2 gig in Boston, and the band feeds off of that. Overall sound
quality is great! There is some audience noise now and again, but nothing too
bad. A cool show, and great to hear them play "Party Girl," played for the first
time since 1993.
Comments by David Beaulieu: I can tell you a lot about this recording because I
recorded it. The recording was made from the floor, using a Sony MZ-R70 recorder
with Core Sound Cardioid mics. We started approximately 25 ft from the tip of
the heart dead center, but moved up gradually until we were positioned about
10-15 ft from the tip of the heart and slightly to the left. We ended up
slightly left so that we could avoid the yahoo's that are constantly screaming
at dead center in the first 10 ft outside the heart.
This recording starts out excellent and gets better. From Sunday Bloody Sunday
until the end of the show, this boot has that dynamic sound that you only get
from the sweet spot on the floor. There are some occasional screams, and some
clapping, but you're going to get that if your in the "dynamic" area. It's the
only area where you can really capture that dynamic sound from both sides of the
PA system. I'll just say that it's a wonderful place to be for listening to a
show -- incredible stereo sound.
U2's performance is amazing at this show. Many people who attended multiple
shows across the country agree that this may have been the best, if not one of
the best shows on the entire 1st leg. Party Girl makes it's only appearance on
the North American Leg. I was lucky enough to see all 4 Boston shows and
Hartford, and this was the best show of the bunch. Heck, it was the best show
I've been to, and I've seen them multiple times on every tour since the Joshua
Tree Tour.
During the acoustic portion of the show, you can hear the actual guitar because
edge is so close. Out Of Control is played, and the band has something extra to
give on this night.
There are a lot of great things to list about this bootleg: With Elvis Costello
and Joe Perry of Aerosmith are in the house so Bono throws in some pieces from
each stars collection. "Pump It Up" is added to the end of Elevation, and
"Alison" is added to the end of Bad. For Joe Perry, Bono adds "Dude looks like a
Lady" to I Will Follow, and "Janie's Got a Gun" to Bullet.
This recording is named "Free Ray Bourque" in reference to Bono's words during
Walk On. For those that do not know, Ray Bourque is a hockey player that spent
19 years with the Boston Bruins (and never won a championship). He was traded to
the Colorado Avalanche hockey team in 2000. On this evening, the Colorado
Avalanche were involved in the deciding game in the Stanley Cup championship.
Bono makes several references to Ray during the evening. Edge wears a Ray
Bourque Boston Bruins jersey during the encore, and Bono cracks himself up by
shouting out "Free Ray Bourque! Free Ray Bourque!" Hey, even hockey players that
haven't won championships need amnesty in this world!
Digital mastering and remastering/editing by: Michael Albuquerque
Comments by Michael Albequerque:
Remastering/editing notes: Due to a possible short in the taper's mic cables,
there were small, periodic gaps of silence at the beginning and end of each of
the 3 master minidiscs (caused by moving the MD recorder before and after disc
insertion). Edits were performed using Soundforge 5.0 in the following
locations: (1) used fade in during intro on disc 1 to merely eliminate these
gaps (as well as most of the PA song "Sgt. Pepper's", (2) used a loop-type
effect near the end of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to mask a 1 second drop out
during a vocal part and faded out the audience after the end of the song, (3)
used a loop-type effect again extensively for the intro of "Desire" which had
most of the opening chords missing (thank God for the repetitive chord
progression), (4) used another loop-type effect to mask a ~1 second drop out
near the end of Beautiful Day, and (5) eliminated gaps in the crowd noise
before the encores. Enhanced bass and treble, normalized volume levels, and
manually reduced volume levels in millisecond increments as necessary to
eliminate clipping (i.e., from occasional loud hand claps nearby). Used fade
in and out at beginning and end of each CD.
*** Please respect the taper's wishes ***
*** DO NOT ENCODE TO MP3 ***
Recording Quality: 9.5 out of 10 (One of the best audience recordings ever,
especially disc 2!)
Band performance: 10 out of 10 (Last night in Boston, U2's home away from home.)